In western Europe and North America, liberal principles
experienced a better fate. By 1871, Great Britain had a
functioning two-party parliamentary system. For fifty
years, the Liberals and Conservatives alternated in power
at regular intervals. Both were dominated by a ruling class
comprised of a coalition of aristocratic landowners frequently
involved in industrial and financial activities and
upper-middle-class businessmen. And each competed
with the other in supporting legislation that expanded
the right to vote. Reform acts in 1867 and 1884 greatly
expanded the number of adult males who could vote, and
by the end of World War I, all males over twenty-one and
women over thirty had that right.
The growth of trade unions and the emergence in
1900 of the Labour Party, which dedicated itself to workers’
interests, put pressure on the Liberals, who perceived
that they would have to initiate a program of social welfare
or lose the support of the workers. Therefore, they
abandoned the classical principles of laissez-faire and enacted
a series of social reforms. The National Insurance
Act of 1911 provided benefits for workers in case of sickness
or unemployment, to be paid for by compulsory contributions
from workers, employers, and the state. Additional
legislation provided a small pension for those over
seventy and compensation for those injured in accidents
at work.
A similar process was under way in France, where the
overthrow of Napoleon III’s Second Empire in 1870 led
to the creation of a republican form of government.
France failed, however, to develop a strong parliamentary
system on the British two-party model because the existence
of a dozen political parties forced the premier to depend
on a coalition of parties to stay in power. The Third
Republic was notorious for its changes of government.
Between 1875 and 1914, there were no fewer than fifty
cabinet changes; during the same period, the British
had eleven. Nevertheless, the government’s moderation
gradually encouraged more and more middle-class and
peasant support, and by 1914, the Third Republic commanded
the loyalty of most French people.
By 1870, Italy had emerged as a geographically united
state with pretensions to great-power status. Its internal
weaknesses, however, gave that claim a particularly
hollow ring. Sectional differences—a poverty-stricken
south and an industrializing north—weakened any sense
of community. Chronic turmoil between labor and industry
undermined the social fabric. The Italian government
was unable to deal effectively with these problems because
of the extensive corruption among government
officials and the lack of stability created by ever-changing
government coalitions. Abroad, Italy’s pretensions to
great-power status proved equally hollow when Italy became
the first European power to lose a war to an African
state, Ethiopia, a humiliation that later led to the costly
(but successful) attempt to compensate by conquering
Libya in 1911 and 1912.
World History
